statism watch

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Chris Windeyer, Nunatsiaq News
June 17, 2010

IQALUIT, Nunavut — Operation Nanook, the Canadian Forces’ summer Arctic sovereignty exercise, moves north of the Arctic Circle for the first time this summer, and in a twist will include ships from the Danish and American navies, plus a ship and dive team from the United States Coast Guard.

The participation by the Dutch and Americans is notable for a Canadian sovereignty exercise, since Canada has lingering offshore boundary disputes with both Denmark and the U.S.

But Lt.-Cmdr. Albert Wong of Canada Command in Ottawa said the two countries are “our allies. Collaboration is part of what Canada does.”

Soldiers from all three branches of the Canadian Forces, plus Canadian Rangers, coast guard and other government personnel will descend on Pond Inlet, Resolute Bay and Grise Fiord, in Nunavut in the eastern Arctic, for a series of exercises from Aug. 6 to 29.

In addition to military exercises, Operation Nanook will feature a coast guard-led oil spill simulation in Lancaster Sound, north of Baffin Island.

Coast guard spokeswoman Carol Launderville said there will be no actual oil spilled. She said the exercise will consist of planning responses to oil spills and practising the deployment of containment booms.

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Dana Gabriel, BeYourOwnLeader
June 9, 2010

As a result of the demise of the Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP) of North America, the NAFTA trilateral relationship has suffered. This has forced many of the SPP’s objectives to be funneled through various bilateral initiatives. Mexico’s drug war is also serving as a catalyst for more North American cooperation and integration in areas of border security, law enforcement and the military. Canada is being encouraged to further engage and commit itself alongside the U.S. in helping Mexico.

Some have described the Canada-Mexico partnership as a failed opportunity with Ottawa more preoccupied with U.S. concerns. Mexican President Felipe Calderón’s recent trip to Canada was seen as a chance to strengthen bilateral bonds and push for more trade and investment between the two NAFTA partners. In a press statement Calderón highlighted, “The reason for this visit is to consolidate and expand our bilateral relationship at all levels.” While addressing a joint session of Parliament, he called for closer ties with Canada and the United States. He emphasized that, “Integration is key to restoring strong sustained growth in North America.” Calderón characterized Mexico as a, “valuable neighbor and a strategic partner for the future of North America’s prosperity.” His message was clear as he championed the need for deeper economic integration and warned against protectionism. Also on the agenda was North American security as Canada is being called upon to expand and deepen cooperation with Mexico on police and judicial issues.

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It took a little bit of digging (the study was actually released a few days ago) but here is the study Corcoran mentions, released by the U of W’s Centre for International Governance Innovation, an institution funded by Jim Balsillie of RIM. Longtime readers may recall that Balsillie was credited in 2007 with setting up Canada’s version of the CFR at the U of T’s Munk Centre. (Jump into the thread on mushrooming ‘International Governance’ schools here) The report is entitled The Financial Stability Board: An Effective Fourth Pillar of Global Economic Governance?. Here is the passage referred to, from the first essay of the report by Louis W. Pauly, a Canada Research Chair in political science and former IMF staffer, The entire essay, six pages or so, illuminates the historical connections tying together the League of Nations, the IMF, Bretton Woods, and the economic theory of Keynes as driving the globalist’s dream. Pauly advocates for the IMF as the global body of economic surveillance (a developing trend we’ve been covering in this journal for some time), expresses doubts that nations can cooperate without such a body, and goes on conclude that:

“…surely we must have more ambitious political objectives. For some years now, international economists, economic geographers and political scientists have tried to put an optimistic spin on the notion that “networked governance” can be appropriate for an integrating global economy. In the wake of the recent financial crisis, the term begins to sound like “no government, except the national one.” I doubt that is adequate, especially in a world where the imperfect substitute for global government since 1945, the United States, may be increasingly reluctant to play that role. Rasminsky once said to me, “At the League, we were expected to catch fish, but we had no bait.” We do not need to re-learn our history lessons the hard way. In the wake of the crisis of 2008, it is time for some serious fishing. We should not shy away from naming the big fish honestly. It is global government, including deep, binding, and well-staffed arrangements for cross-national fiscal and monetary burden-sharing adequate to sustain integrating financial markets. If we really cannot imagine the bait that will help us catch it, then we should abandon the dream of global markets. And since the dream was originally dreamt in response to military insecurity, we must then not flinch at the consequent challenge of imagining feasible alternatives at this most basic level of world order. If we are not that brave, then it is far preferable to return seriously to the hard work of realizing the dream. We may then discover that Polak, Gold, and Rasminsky were just ahead of their time.”

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Terence Corcoran, The Financial Post
June 8, 2010

This is simply PR for the drive to continental integration. Reader should note that this is not an original part of NORAD’s duties, but a development that dates to a 2008 troop sharing agreement under NORTHCOM, the US military umbrella organization given jurisdiction in the wake of 9/11 over the US and Canada insofar as operations (training exercises, etc.) relate to US strategic interests. The globe has been sliced up (conceptually) into regional theatres, you see, and other functional entities of the US strategy include SOUTHCOM, AFRICOM, etc. You can read about NORTHCOM here and here.

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CBC News
June 7, 2010

Gen. Walt Natynczyk welcomed the new NORAD commander, U.S. Admiral James Winnefeld, who pledged the Americans’ full military support during the upcoming G8 and G20 summits in Toronto.

NORAD, the North American Aerospace Defence Command, is a binational military organization established in 1958 by Canada and the U.S. to monitor and defend North American airspace.

NORAD monitors and tracks man-made objects in space and detects, validates and warns of attacks on North America by aircraft, missiles, satellites and space debris.

Speaking at a press conference in Ottawa Monday, Winnefeld told reporters he was interested in accomplishing two things during his tenure.

The first is to re-emphasize the importance of NORAD — which he called a “very, very important security relationship that is emblematic of the overall relationship between our countries.”

“It’s symbolic of the partnership between our two countries evidenced by our ongoing … international security force, forces in Afghanistan and also places like Haiti and the like,” he said.

The second thing Winnefeld said he wants to do “is really to listen and learn.”

“As the commander of NORAD, I not only work for the United States, I work for Canada and it’s very important for me to listen to the national security team in Canada, to discover what is important in Canadian minds so that it can influence what I do.”

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Related: Bilderberg 2010: The security lockdown begins | Secretive Bilderberg Club ready for protests | Dublin Trilateral attendees let slip need for world govt, war with Iran, Bilderberg oversight | Tucker: Bilderberg To Meet in Spain, Prolong Global Financial Recession For Another Year

Charlie Skelton, London Guardian
June 4, 2010

The people who are being detained, searched and questioned are not playing some game. They are deadly serious, and they are worried to death

Ivan was alone on the roundabout. He had been left in charge of the banners while everyone else ate breakfast.

He slipped an empty bottle of red wine into a binliner and stretched. At his feet was a chalk-drawn pyramid showing the structure of society, the word “pueblo” at the bottom, and the tip pointing up the hill towards Bilderberg. It’s a short pyramid today, maybe half a heavily-armed mile from Rockefeller down to Ivan.

Ivan’s bed last night – is it had been the night before – was the scrub by the roadside. “It’s not so cold in my bag,” he said. “A lot of times I travel in the mountains – in the mountains, you can sleep anywhere.”

A lone Catalonian in green trousers, he clutched a leaflet and stood in the Sitges sun as, up the hill, billionaires and finance ministers ate kiwifruit patisseries.

The shame, the awful poignancy of Bilderberg, is that, for much of the time, there are more delegates up the hill than there are protesters at the foot of it.

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Jonathan Montpetit, The Canadian Press
June 3, 2010

MONTREAL – A European diplomat identified three potential obstacles Tuesday to a free-trade deal with Canada: intellectual property rights, agriculture and government contracts.

Though the outlook for a wide-ranging Canada-EU treaty remains positive, Spain’s ambassador to Ottawa indicated several areas will require significant concessions from both sides.

“There are of course some chapters which will be very easy to close,” ambassador Eudaldo Mirapeix told reporters after a luncheon speech in Montreal.

“There are two or three which are difficult, (but) not insurmountable.”

Both sides are working to conclude an expansive free-trade agreement by the end of 2011.

Ottawa hopes an eventual deal will be even more comprehensive than the North American Free Trade Agreement, and predicts it would boost the country’s GDP by $12 billion annually.

But the upcoming round of negotiations in Brussels this July will likely be more difficult than previous bargaining sessions as trade representatives broach the specifics of a deal.

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The present Israeli leadership didn’t like the UN sponsored Goldstone Report exposing the Israeli use of white phosphorous etc. during the Gaza Strip assault either. (Israel for its part denies the commission of any war crimes or the breach of international law.)

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The Associated Press
June 3, 2010

Israel is expected to reject calls from the United Nations and others for an international investigation of its deadly raid on a Gaza-bound aid flotilla.

At least nine people were killed when six ships trying to break the three-year blockade of Gaza were raided by Israeli commandos early Monday.

Israel says the commandos used force only after activists on board a Turkish flagship attacked them. Nine of the activists were killed.

Turkey, an unofficial backer of the flotilla, has accused Israel of committing a “bloody massacre” against civilians delivering humanitarian aid.

The UN’s assistant secretary general, Oscar Fernandez-Taranco, said Monday in his briefing to the Security Council that the bloodshed would have been avoided “if repeated calls on Israel to end the counterproductive and unacceptable blockade of Gaza had been heeded.”

Israel’s military is already investigating the raid.

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Plan on fitting in a side trip to Bilderberg this year, Harper?

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CBC News
June 2, 2010

Prime Minister Stephen Harper is headed to Europe on Wednesday evening to make one last pitch for his economic recovery plan before Canada hosts the G8 and G20 summits in late June.

Harper will meet with new British Prime Minister David Cameron in London on Thursday before a sitdown Friday with French President Nicolas Sarkozy in Paris.

The prime minister is expected to use the meetings to discuss his crusade against a proposed international bank tax that the U.S. and the European Union are expected to pitch at the G20 meeting in Toronto.

Canadian cabinet ministers have been travelling around the world in recent weeks to campaign against the proposed bank tax.

Harper has said the measure would unfairly penalize well-regulated Canadian financial institutions that survived the global economic meltdown.

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Related: Ex-Mossad agent: Gaza flotilla raid ’so stupid it’s stupefying’ | Knesset member and eyewitness: Israel fired before boarding ship | Protests in Middle East, Europe, follow deadly Israeli attack on flotilla as UN convenes emergency session | Israeli troops attack ship carrying aid to Gaza killing 16 | Israeli navy prepares for action as activists’ flotilla nears Gaza | George Galloway, on aid mission to Gaza, is deported from Egypt | Cynthia McKinney Demands Immediate Release After Her Gaza-Bound Boat is Seized by Israeli Navy | Israeli troops kill apartheid wall protester | Gaza relief boat carrying former Congresswoman rammed by Israelis | Former US congresswoman, presidential candidate Cynthia McKinney barred from boarding plane to human rights conference

The Associated Press
June 2, 2010

The, erm, faeces storm over JP Morgan’s control over sewage treatment in one Carolinian county should be enough of a preview into the way these deals go down to alarm any Canadian, free market loving or otherwise. The legitimacy of ownership of the commons really needs a lot more attention than it gets when it comes to water.

Related: Greece’s near bankruptcy won’t scuttle Canada-EU trade talks: minister | Big stakes in Canada-Europe trade talks, but little attention | EU ‘Free Trade’ and CETA: Advancing the Transatlantic Agenda | CETA worse than ACTA – EU Trade Negotiators Demand Canada Completely Overhaul Its Intellectual Property La ws | Beyond ACTA: Proposed EU – Canada Trade Agreement Intellectual Property Chapter Leaks | EU approves free-trade talks with Canada | Canada expects EU free-trade talks soon: Stockwell Day | Harper, Sarkozy vow to work toward Canada-EU deal | CD Howe Institute backs Canada-EU deal, deep integration | Towards a new world order: Canada-EU trade proposal rivals scope of NAFTA

Bruce Campion-Smith, Toronto Star
May 29, 2010

OTTAWA – Foreign companies would gain unprecedented access to municipal water services and perhaps even a claim to the water itself under the free trade deal now being negotiated between Canada and the European Union, a new report says.

While the federal government has touted the economic upsides of the trade pact, a legal analysis claims it will likely have big implications for municipalities by forcing them to open their contracts to European firms.

That’s the view of Canadian trade lawyer Steve Shrybman, who penned an opinion of the free trade talks for the Centre for Civic Governance, a Vancouver-based advocacy group.

The European Union has made a pointed request that drinking water services be included in the trade agreement, opening the door for big multinational firms to “stake” a claim in municipal water systems, he said.

“The objective of these large water conglomerates is to expand their Canadian markets by winning contracts to establish and/or operate water supply and waste water treatment facilities and services,” he writes in his opinion.

“The most serious threat to public ownership and control of water arises from the risk of private entities being able to establish a proprietary claim to the water itself,” the report says.

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